Teens Blog: New Years Resolution

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a great holiday season. It’s always a bit of a let-down, getting to the new year only to find that it’s a lot like the year before, and still cold. Plus I’ve never been a big “resolutions” person, so I’ve never had that to really look forward to or feel good about.

This year I’m going to change that, and experiment with this whole “new year’s resolutions” thing. But, much like the best way of getting your dog to do what you say is telling her to “sit” when she’s already sitting, I find resolutions are much easier to keep if they’re things you want to be doing or will be doing anyways. Otherwise most people end up like Allie Brosh (hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com), and start out feeling like this:

And end up, a few days or a few weeks later, feeling like this:

So this year I resolve to: read lots of young adult books, which is a totally valid professional goal and not just an excuse to read books that I like, I promise; go for lots of runs near Lake Michigan (Healthy! Good for me! Never mind the pretty, relaxing, fun parts); cuddle with my parents’ dogs whenever I’m home for a visit, because they definitely need to bond with me in case I dog-sit, right?; and travel to Boston, California, and a few other places. I definitely owe my friends visits, so I’ve gotta do this!

Well, with that arduous resolutions process out of the way, I’d like to recommend a few good resolutions to consider for this coming year, only one or two of which are shameless library plugs. 1.) Come to late night study at the library January 14-16. Studying for finals is going to be terrible no matter what, but free coffee and food plus some company has to help. 2.) Go see Divergent, the new Captain America movie, Maleficent, or whatever other big release you’re looking forward to. Being able to converse about pop culture is all the rage at social events like, y’know, hanging out with your friends. 3.) Read at least a few new books. Some people like me spend a lot of time re-reading old favorites, and some people just aren’t big readers. But you never know when the next new book will be your next new favorite, so getting some new reads in can only be a good thing. 4.) Spend at least one day this year doing absolutely nothing productive. Better if this isn’t a school day, obviously, so pick a weekend or summer day. Relaxing recharges us mentally and physically, so it’s a good thing to do every now and then.

So that’s my strategy for keeping my New Year’s resolutions. What about you? Does anybody have any actually difficult resolutions? How do you keep them?